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4.
Essay
• Choose a game or a part of the game
– Except: example and exercise games
• 8-12 pages, 12 pt Times or equivalent, double spaced
• You should describe the game (or the part) using the
concepts or theories from
– Lankoski, “Computer Games and Emotions”
– Järvinen, “Chapter Four: Theory of Game Elements”
– (Salen & Zimmerman, “Chapter 18: Games as Cybernetic Systems”)
• Deadline Friday 10.12.
– Writing tutoring (at latest) in the week 48
• Missing the deadline will decrease the grade (1/week), unless new
schedule is agreed beforehand!

5.
Essay…
• A game analysis essay should be independent work
that should be readable and understandable by a
person who is not expert on subject matter. Essay
should contain:
1. Introduction: a description of the goals of the essay, short
introduction to a game analyzed, description of the main
concept used in the essay (with references);
2. Main part structured by the needs of analysis;
3. Conclusions summarizing main findings;
4. References
• References should be formatted according to Harvard
system.

10.
Settlers of Catan: Balance
• A multiplayer game is balanced when each player have equal change of
winning in the beginning
– In terms of formal features
• Symmetry creates balance
– Not the only way to balance a game
• Setters of Catan is symmetric in terms of
– Game Mechanics
– Component-of-self
• Not symmetric in terms of setup
– Setup
• Asymmetry is compensated with setup order player1–player2–player3–player4–
player4–player3–player2–player1
• Game board?
Game Analysis

12.
Probabilities
• Dice throws are always independent events
– Previous event does not influence the probability of the
next event!
• But cards are dependent events
– The probability to get two aces from the unused deck is 4/52
(four aces in 52 cards) * 3/51 (three aces and 51 cards left)
Game Analysis

14.
Settlers of Catan: Balance…
Game Analysis
• Now we can calculate probabilities
for the board
– But what these probabilities tell…
• Does the board afford balanced
play?
– Is there enough good locations to
place initial settlement for all the
players?
– Is there good locations to expand
later?
- YES
- YES, unless on made a
bad choices in the setup